Wiktionary:Information desk/2019/March

About the pronunciation of Japanese "kumo"

I'm curious about these two Japanese words:

雲 (kumo, “cloud”)
蜘蛛 (kumo, “spider”)

My questions:

Are they pronounced exactly the same?
- The pronunciation section of both entries already has the same IPA, so it looks like the answer is "yes". I'm just checking.
Are these words likely to be confused with each other if the context doesn't help?
- Suppose someone says a sentence along these lines in Japanese: "Please draw a 'kumo' for me." I'd like to know if it would be likely to sound ambiguous.

Thanks in advance. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 13:54, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This Reddit thread includes (besides a bunch of unhelpful stuff) evidence that Japanese speakers would just say sora no kumo (and presumably mushi no kumo) to disambiguate if the interlocutor didn't understand by context alone. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 14:40, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

My dictionary (Kenkyusha pocket) also gives the same tonal pattern (a downstep in pitch) for both. --Lambiam 16:27, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In the standard Japanese accent, both of them are pronounced as /kúmò/, but in the Kansai dialect, 雲 /kúmò/ and 蜘蛛 /kùmô/ respectively. Those are one of the rare exceptional minimal pairs not following the rules of correspondence between the dialects in Tokyo and the Kansai region.--荒巻モロゾフ (talk) 16:27, 6 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@荒巻モロゾフ: Could you please add the Kansai to these two entries? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:21, 6 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I would very much like to add them, but {{ja-pron}} is totally messed up for expressing Japanese dialectal phonological structures. It can't express accent system of Kansai dialect (there are fall and rise accents and no voiceless vowels in Kansai dialect) and can't handle the difference of the vowel and consonant between Japanese dialects (Western Japanese /u/ is not [ɯ] like Tokyo dialect, but [u]). We should change the template.--荒巻モロゾフ (talk) 15:07, 8 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

How to give definitions for prefixes

I'm working on uploading a lot of Tocharian B words, many of which are prefixed with e(n)-. The issue is, that particular prefix appears to have two uses, both as an intensifier and a negator, which are largely opposites. I was going to use the || used for definitions, but the usage of the prefix is different from the definition, so I feel it wouldn't fit there. How would I specify the usage of the prefix?

Here's an example of what I'm talking about: anklautkatte. The e(n)- prefix is used as an intensifier here, but I have no way of neatly denoting that as opposed to the negator usage. GabeMoore (talk) 17:07, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I assume that this is about the template {{affix}}. You could use {{af|txb|e(n)-#Etymology 2|alt1=e(n)-|klautk-}}. --Lambiam 18:00, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You should use the "id" parameter, as in {{af|txb|e(n)-|id1=test}}. DTLHS (talk) 18:03, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Doing that didn't change anything. What I'm looking for is a way to show the meaning of the prefix right after it is written. For example: Latin cudo (“to beat”).

(This is kind of difficult to explain via writing, so bear with me.) GabeMoore (talk) 18:47, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You can see all the parameters and their documentation at Template:affix. DTLHS (talk) 19:56, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The best I can do with the template in its current form is {{af|txb|e(n)-#Etymology 2|alt1=e(n)-|t1=a [[negating]] prefix|klautk-|t2=}}. However, that produces a gloss that looks like (“a negating prefix”); I think we’d like to see (a negating prefix) in italics, instead of between quote signs. --Lambiam 21:21, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You shouldn't use section links inside terms like that. Sections may change as entries change, so they are not reliable. Moreover, they only link to the first section with that name on the page, which may change as well. —Rua (mew) 22:28, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

To display a non-gloss definition, what I usually do is use a pos parameter. For instance, in ἀρχή (arkhḗ), {{affix|grc|ἄρχω|t1=to begin|-η|id2=zero grade|pos2=verbal noun suffix}}. — Eru·tuon 21:46, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Modern translations

One of the quotations for bedlock is from Goethe, who was of course an 18th Century poet, but the date of the text it is taken from (a modern translation) is 2005. But this implies the original quotation is from 2005. Is this intentional? Is this dating issue a common problem with translations and other secondary reference texts that quotations are taken from? --185.61.90.64 12:13, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The year is fine, but what was not fine in this quotation is giving Goethe as the author, instead of the translator.

I have modified the attribution in the quotation. --Lambiam 22:24, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Period (full stop) inside IPA string

So I was looking at the entries for demon and daemon and came to believe they were (probably) pronounced the same. The problem is that the IPA string in the two entries differ in that there seems to be a period in one and not the other. Demon has IPA^(key): /ˈdiː.mən/ and the other has IPA^(key): /ˈdiːmən/. Is one of these in error? If so, which? If both are okay, why do they differ, etc.? Thanks. --R. S. Shaw (talk) 19:36, 6 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's a syllable break, and not always marked. See Wiktionary:International Phonetic Alphabet or w:International Phonetic Alphabet. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:19, 6 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Designing Wiktionary Task for Students

Hello!

I am teaching Lexicography to junior university students this semester. What are ways I can incorporate Wiktionary in the syllabus? I am thinking of getting the students on board by designing a project task in which the students add words/translations to Wiktionary. The students native language is Arabic and they are majoring in translation between Arabic and English. So far, the students have good knowledge of the types of dictionaries, the macro- and micro-structures, and the best practices in writing definitions. I think this could potentially be a real asset to Wiktionary and to the students. Your opinions and ideas are highly appreciated.--Reem Al-Kashif (talk) 16:10, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. Off the top of my head, given the topic your students are majoring in, I think the most valuable contributions your students can make is correcting or adding Arabic terms at the English Wiktionary, and likewise for English terms at the Arabic Wiktionary. I don’t know anything about the situation at the Arabic Wiktionary, so the following applies mainly to the English Wiktionary. I assume all student contributions will be supervised and checked – at Wikipedia they have had some bad experiences with student projects that in the end cost the regular editors more pain, effort and time than it was worth.

For starters, the students should be well aware of (1) our criteria for inclusion, (2) our formatting conventions for entries (for beginners it helps to look at analogous existing entries and follow the format found there, but this should never be done blindly), and (3) our conventions that are specific to Arabic. They should study these and discuss what they do not immediately find clear until they are reasonably comfortable with these rules. If done right, this will save them a lot of wasted effort and us a lot of tears.

I assume that the students know, or are savvy enough to check if they are not sure, when a term or expression is specifically Egyptian Arabic. We welcome Egyptian Arabic entries, but they should be marked with the language code arz instead of the code ar for general Arabic.

Here are two lists of known tasks specific for Arabic:

Requests for verification in Arabic entries (only a few requests).
Requested entries (quite a few; giving some consideration to which terms are the most important ones may be helpful).

You can try to enlist the assistance of some of the editors who are native Arabic speakers – but I cannot speak for them; several of the editors on that list are not currently active or may have only very limited time available.

I hope that others will add their ideas and comments. Best of luck. --Lambiam 21:17, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam Did you mean "Wiktionary" rather than "Wikipedia" in that first paragraph? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 19:41, 10 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

D’oh! Yes, of course. Corrected. Thanks. --Lambiam 20:00, 10 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well if they are majoring in translation, Category:Requests for translations into Arabic and Category:Requests for review of Arabic translations and English translation tables in general would be an appropriate puzzle for them, I guess. Otherwise people are only occasionally eager to add many technical terms. On the other hand they can just create well-defined entries with well-found usage examples or quotes from occasional literature they read. Regard an entry like German stellen. It is a super-basic word but one has to define well and give proper usages examples to get over all the nuances, which also means one needs to have a proper capability of abstraction to group senses; the cherries on top are quotes from all kinds of texts.

No one in the category “editors who are native speakers of Arabic” has been active in Arabic the last two years. Aspiring editors just have to see to use correct formatting and make nothing unreasonable. There are some other editors that know how it should look like and will look onto occurring edits here and there so no misfits are maintained. @Reem Al-Kashif Fay Freak (talk) 00:45, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at Category:Arabic terms with quotations could be interesting: what makes a good quotation? Category:Arabic usage examples with the translation missing could also be relevant. —Suzukaze-c ◇◇ 09:10, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Bullets in etymology

Several entries, like abdominothoracic, have bullets before the etymology, but many don’t. Several entries of words with multiple possible etymologies have bullets for each possible etymology, but many don’t. What exactly is the consensus for such formatting? Tamınɢsari (談話) 09:01, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If there is just a single etymology, as for abdominothoracic, putting a bullet in front serves no purpose. If there are several possible etymologies, I’d rather see a treatment in running sentences, like e.g. for badge and kludge, which makes it easier to express judgements regarding plausibility (if warranted), like seen at shanty. So then also no bullets are needed. --Lambiam 17:31, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think the bullets can be visually useful where there are multiple unrelated ety theories. Equinox ◑ 01:13, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Even then I prefer an unbulleted intro to the bulleted list, even if it just says:

Unknown. There are several, unrelated theories:

a calque of German Gscheidwaschl;
by metathesis from know-it-all;
a wordplay on the name Knowles-Allitt.

--Lambiam 09:58, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

adding columns to tables

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Help:Wikitext_quick_reference#Images,_tables,_video,_and_sounds

This does not explain how one can add a blank column to a table. I don't have time to add hundreds of "||" to each line.

Ref. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:List_of_German_cognates_with_English

Thanks.

--77.189.46.111 16:09, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a way to easily list new words?

I can see how to list recent edits and so on, but what I'd really like to do is just find (for example) English words or phrases added to Wiktionary in the last year. Even better might be some way to know that the word is actually a new word rather than an old word that has taken a while to get into Wiktionary but I expect that is impossible (I guess there are other places on the web to find such lists?). Basically I'd like to keep abreast of new words (perhaps also new meanings to old words, so long as they aren't only found in some small group's jargon/slang). Any thoughts how to do something like this? Thanks, Maitchy (talk) 22:32, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Maitchy: Special:NewPages. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:02, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like that's definitely not what Maitchy is looking for. Category:Hot words is probably a better bet. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:43, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, solved - Hot words was exactly what I was after. Thank you heaps! Maitchy (talk) 03:54, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note that new coinages don't have to go into "hot words". We usually do that if the word doesn't meet our usual attestation standards yet (see WT:CFI) but we are confident it will do so later. Equinox ◑ 19:11, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You can get new English lemmas with the following code:

<DynamicPageList>
category             = English lemmas
count                = 50
order                = descending
addfirstcategorydate = true
</DynamicPageList>

DTLHS (talk) 03:55, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

brazen copyright infringement

The entry foist has been an exact copy of https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/foist since its creation 13 years ago. Since this easily detectable copyright infringement wasn't noticed despite about 100 edits by at least 30 different editors, including edits by well-known editors and many edits by bots, it seems we need an automated detection process. --Espoo (talk) 15:02, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Espoo: "easily detectable" is very different than "easily verifiable" (see NP), if you have suggestions for how to reasonably detect copyright infringement without the assistance of the publishers of all of the various dictionaries which may be infringed, please elaborate. This does seem like one which ought to have been caught, but after the first few modifications it becomes increasingly difficult to tell which edits were good-faith and which were not. - TheDaveRoss 15:42, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]